Hissène Habré
Hissène Habré (born 13 September 1942), is a former Chadian dictator ruling from 1982 to his deposal in 1990. His one party regime was characterized by widespread human rights abuses and atrocities. He denies killing and torturing tens of thousands of his opponents although in 2012, the UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Senegal to put him on trial or extradite him to face justice overseas. He is the first former head of state to be convicted for human rights abuses in the court of another nation. Biography Habré was born in 1942 in Faya-Largeau, northern Chad, then a colony of France, into a family of shepherds. He is a member of the Anakaza branch of the Daza Gourane ethnic group, which is itself a branch of the Toubou ethnic group. After primary schooling, he obtained a post in the French colonial administration, where he impressed his superiors and gained a scholarship to study in France at the Institute of Overseas Higher Studies in Paris. He completed a university degree in political science in Paris, and returned to Chad in 1971. He also obtained several other degrees and earned his Doctorate from the Institute. After a further brief period of government service as a deputy prefect, he visited Tripoli and joined the National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT) where he became a commander in the Second Liberation Army of FROLINAT along with Goukouni Oueddei. After Abba Siddick assumed the leadership of FROLINAT, the Second Liberation Army, first under Oueddei's command and then under Habré's, split from FROLINAT and became the Command Council of the Armed Forces of the North (CCFAN). In 1976 Oueddei and Habré quarreled and Habré split his newly named Armed Forces of the North (Forces Armées du Nord or FAN) from Goukouni's followers who adopted the name of People's Armed Forces (Forces Armées Populaires or FAP). Both FAP and FAN operated in the extreme north of Chad, drawing their fighters from the Toubou nomadic people. Habré first came to international attention when a group under his command attacked the town of Bardaï in Tibesti, on 21 April 1974, and took three Europeans hostage, with the intention of ransoming them for money and arms. The captives were a German physician, Dr. Christoph Staewen (whose wife Elfriede was killed in the attack), and two French citizens, Françoise Claustre, an archeologist, and Marc Combe, a development worker. Staewen was released on 11 June 1974 after significant payments by West German officials. Combe escaped in 1975, but despite the intervention of the French Government, Claustre (whose husband was a senior French government official) was not released until 1 February 1977. Habré split with Oueddei, partly over this hostage-taking incident (which became known as the "Claustre affair" in France). Following his rise to power, Habré created a secret police force known as the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS), under which opponents of Habré were tortured and executed.Some methods of torture commonly used by the DDS included; burning with incandescent objects, spraying of gas into the eyes, ears, and nose; forced swallowing of water, and forcing the mouths of detainees around the exhaust pipes of running cars. Habré's government periodically engaged in ethnic cleansing against groups such as the Sara, Hadjerai and the Zaghawa, killing and arresting group members in masses when it perceived that their leaders posed a threat to the regime. This gave him the nickname "Africa's Pinochet". During the first days of the trial, Hissène Habré refused to cooperate and every day was forcibly brought to the Palace of Justice. The victims did not lose hope of speaking. “We have come to Dakar to look the dictator in the eyes,” said the victims, “who has the honor of hearing our testimonies, the courage to face their judges, to respond to the accusations. We want to ask him why we were jailed and tortured, why our relatives were killed. ” Category:List Category:Male Category:Living Villains Category:Elderly Category:Torturer Category:Murderer Category:Dictator Category:Presidents Category:Rapists Category:Destroyer of Innocence Category:Slaver Category:Imprisoned Category:Tyrants Category:Mass Murderers Category:Oppressors Category:Military Category:Corrupt Officials Category:Criminals Category:Usurper Category:Evil vs Evil Category:Anarchist Category:Power Hungry Category:War Criminal Category:Thugs Category:Fugitives Category:African Villains Category:Terrorists Category:Cold war villains Category:Sadists Category:Emotionless Villains Category:Barbarians Category:Lawful Evil Category:Political Category:Prime Ministers Category:Anti-Religious Category:Islamophobes Category:Xenophobes Category:Supremacists Category:Mutilators Category:Psychopath Category:Paranoid Category:Perverts Category:Psychological Abusers Category:Wrathful